Arizona, Massachusetts and New Hampshire refugee contractors cutting back

In my previous post I told you about the reality setting in in Arizona, and now we see that New England refugee contractors are facing that reality too and cutting staff, or shortening hours.

I am delighted to see more effort being made on the part of reporters to get their facts.

Here at WBUR News (NPR Boston) reporter Shannon Dooling actually did some work (emphasis is mine)!

Immigration lawyer Kerry Doyle

Look at this, right up front—refugee agencies paid by the head!

Refugee resettlement agencies receive funding based on the number of people they anticipate resettling, so the uncertainty around President Trump’s travel ban has serious fiscal consequences. [They are paid by how many they actually resettle as they bid for bodies.—ed]

Jeff Thielman is the CEO of the International Institute of New England, a resettlement agency working in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. His agency expects eight refugees to arrive by March 28.

“It means that we have not filled a number of positions that were open in all three of our offices in the resettlement area,” he said. “It also means that we may have to make further reductions. We’re going to make those decisions in the next few weeks.”

Ascentria Care Alliance, a resettlement agency based in Worcester and operating in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire, announced Monday that as a result of Trump’s travel ban it had laid off or reduced hours for 14 employees.

“Although the orders have been stayed, even the most recent one, we are no longer receiving any refugees in the pipeline and we don’t anticipate receiving any more refugees until maybe four to six months out at the earliest,” said Jodie Justofin, Ascentria’s vice president of communications.

For new readers, see that in 2013, Ascentria’s CEO admitted that refugee resettlement IS A BUSINESS!

Dooling continues….

Despite that temporary freeze, the finances of resettlement agencies are still unstable. But a return to pre-Trump quotas could boost their coffers.

Before he left office, President Obama capped the number of refugees admitted into the U.S. during the current fiscal year at 110,000. Resettlement agencies engineered their budgets through September based on those projections.  [If they did that it was really really dumb because that (110,000) was by far the highest ceiling proposed since before 9/11. The average for most of Bush and Obama years was 65,000.—ed]

[….]

President Trump cut that cap on refugees to 50,000. That’s an action within the powers of the executive.

But since Trump’s cap is part of an executive order, the constitutionality of which is under question, Boston immigration attorney Kerry Doyle says the quota may be challenged in the courts.

Ha! Wishful thinking?

“While the president does have broad authority to set the fiscal numbers, because it’s caught up in a lot of the other problems with this executive order being potentially unconstitutional, the question is whether the 50,000 is also stayed,” Doyle said.

Doyle confirms what we said that Trump did not have to reduce the CEILING or slow the flow through an Executive Order.

And Ms. Doyle does know that the judge can’t order the federal government to spend money and send agents abroad to process refugees. It would be insane if Trump’s people believed that! They should just go ahead and keep the numbers low (or at today’s level, see right hand sidebar, 38,111) ignoring the judge’s unconstitutional assertion.

More here at WBUR.

I want to reiterate another point I have been making. The resettlement agencies (aka contractors) are in a pickle because they have been running a kind of Ponzi scheme where they anticipate certain refugee numbers (paying clients) coming in in the future, but they never have enough private money in their budgets to tide them over if the flow slows. Why? I can only guess they have been operating for so long on mostly federal funding that they have gotten too lazy to do private fundraising.

Or, there aren’t enough private citizens willing to pay for refugee resettlement!

RELATED ARTICLE: Tucson area resettlement agency may close; Memory lane! Iraqis unhappy there in 2007

DANGER ZONES: ICE List of Counties harboring Illegal Aliens includes Alachua County, Florida

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement published the list below of counties that have refused to detain criminal illegal aliens.

ICE Declined Detainer Outcome Report – Jan 28 to Feb 3 2017[1] by JessicaDurando on Scribd

Breitbart’s Ben Kew in his column Trump Publishes 1st List of ‘Sanctuary Cities’ Protecting Illegal Aliens reports:

In an attempt to increase pressure on sanctuary cities, the Department of Homeland Security has published its first weekly list of all 118 localities refusing to cooperate with the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Each week, the list will publish every detention request rejected by local jails — detailing the relevant agency, the status of the immigrant, and the charges they are facing.

The first report was published this Monday, listing 206 cases in which illegal aliens were arrested and consequently released from jail without charge, despite recommendations from the Immigration and Crime Enforcement agency (ICE) to detain them for at least 48 hours.

The cases listed took place between January 28th to February 3rd, Donald Trump’s second week in office.

In his executive order signed January 25th designed to properly enforce immigration policy, Trump said regular lists were necessary to better inform the public “regarding the public safety threats associated with sanctuary jurisdictions.”

Read more…

Kew notes, “A poll conducted by the University of California Berkeley in January found that in the state of California, where sanctuary cities are particularly prominent, 74 percent would like to see them abolished.”

In our column Forget Sanctuary Cities — Florida has 7 Sanctuary Counties we reported:

Well San Francisco has nothing over the Sunshine State. Florida is home to seven “sanctuary counties.” The sanctuary counties are: Pasco, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Hernando, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

These counties are perfectly located along Florida’s East and West coast lines to allow illegal felons, like Francisco Sanchez, to enter with ease.

Sanctuary-Cities-Map

Map of sanctuary counties (yellow) and cities (red) in the United States. Map courtesy of the Center for Immigration Studies.

shrf-darnell (1)

Sheriff Sadie Darnell

Harboring illegal aliens is wrong and endangers Florida’s citizens. Alachua County is now another danger zone in the Sunshine state.

Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell has a constitutional duty to uphold the laws of the State of Florida and federal laws concerning illegal alien detention. Not to do so is simply wrong.

If Sheriff Darnell can break the law then anyone can.

RELATED ARTICLE: Sanctuary policies ‘led to’ brutal, bathroom rape of 14-year-old schoolgirl

EDITORS NOTE: It was San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi who allowed five time deported illegal alien Francisco Sanchez to kill helpless, unsuspecting Kate Steinle.

Video: Why the blocks on Trump’s immigration ban are illegitimate

This morning I spoke at the Young America’s Foundation conference at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, California on Trump’s immigration ban and why the judicial blocks on it are illegitimate.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Paris airport jihadi had Qur’an, screamed “I’m here to die for Allah, there will be deaths”

Erdogan: EU ruling on headscarf bans starts “clash between Islam and Christianity”

Hawaii Judge Thumbs Nose at Attorney General Sessions

You probably heard on the news over the weekend that the Department of Justice sought clarification from Obama’s friend, Judge Derrick Watson, in Hawaii and asked if he really meant to include a stop order on the President’s 120-day moratorium on refugee admissions and the FY17 ceiling reduction when he was aiming at the travel freeze.

Imam Ismail Elshikh

The travel issue and the refugee admissions issue are two separate things. For the time being, take the so-called ‘travel ban’ from six countries out of your mind. It is not the main subject of this blog or what I want to try to make clear to readers (and the lazy, ignorant press).

BTW: A co-plaintiff in the case is Imam Ismail Elshikh. Question: Is he even a U.S. citizen? The story is here at a very unusual blog that I had never heard of.

The confusion comes from the fact that the first judge on the original order left the refugee admissions pause and ceiling portion of the EO intact and so did the Maryland judge last week.

It appears that Judge Derrick Watson believes he has the authority to set the ceiling for refugee admissions each year.

He emphatically does not have that authority.  He can’t make the Department of State resume overseas processing of refugees. He can’t make the Administration and Congress spend money on refugees.

The President has the explicit power in the Refugee Act of 1980 to set the CEILING (as we said here). In most years the President (Bush and Obama) has been well under the CEILING!

As I have said recently, the big mistake the Trump team made was putting the refugee pause into an Executive Order.

They have the power to slow the flow and stay under a proposed CEILING without an explicit order.  The only thing I can see that they should have done (maybe they did it) was to notify the House and Senate Judiciary Committees that they were lowering the ceiling.  However, the original act only gave Congress the power to ‘consult’ not stop the President. (In 1980, Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter put a lot of power in the President’s hands when it comes to refugee admissions!)

If the controversy continues, more taxpaying Americans will be educated!

That said, there could be a silver lining.  The Trump State Department can keep the flow low (or at zero) for months to come, and because the refugee ceiling is in Watson’s case (a case that surely will now work its way through the courts), the subject of the US Refugee Admissions Program will continue to be in the national news.  Thus more and more Americans will be learning the facts about what they have been paying for since 1980!

Bill Frelick of Human Rights Watch

As for the contractors (see list below), they would have been better off just shutting up and taking the 120-day (16 week) pause because 7 weeks have already passed since the original EO was announced on January 28th and they would be on their way through the slowdown.

Before you read the latest news about the Judge sticking by his original decision last week, see what refugee advocate and longtime expert Bill Frelick (Human Rights Watch) said in November after Trump was elected and the refugee industry went in to shell-shock:

“In the U.S., there’s not a quota that has to be filled. The U.S. has a budgeted amount of money to do refugee resettlement, but there’s no requirement that the U.S. resettle a single refugee, and there’s no legal obligation to do it.”

Here is one of many stories (this one at Fox News) this morning about Judge Watson telling the DOJ—no way, not changing a thing!

The federal judge in Hawaii who halted President Trump’s new, revised travel ban denied the administration’s request for him to limit the scope of his ruling Sunday so that the United States can immediately stop taking in refugees worldwide.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order on Trump’s order that prevents travelers from six mostly-Muslim countries entering the U.S. and suspends the United States’ worldwide refugee program.

Justice Department attorneys argued in a motion Friday that Watson’s temporary restraining order was essentially based on the argument that the ban appears to unconstitutionally target Muslims.

They questioned whether his ruling was limited to the part of Trump’s March 6 executive order that temporarily bans visas to travel from the six countries into the U.S., and not to the temporary refugee ban.

Watson responded Sunday by saying there was nothing unclear about the scope of his order and that the ruling remains unchanged.

More here.

As I said above, keep it up! The more public controversy surrounding the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program the better because then more American taxpayers will be educated!
For a laugh, don’t miss the news that Hawaii has taken only a tiny number of refugees for the last 14 years!

*** Here (below) are the nine major federal refugee contractors who now will see their budgets slashed (because they are largely funded by you, the taxpayer).  They know this judge is on thin ice on the President’s power to determine the number of refugees being admitted to the US.

Are they hoping that Watson can bully his way through and singlehandedly re-write the Refugee Act of 1980 turning a ceiling in to a target/goal—something the refugee industry has wanted for a long time!

By the way, for new readers, you need to know that your local resettlement agency will be a subcontractor of one of the nine fake charities that monopolize the federal refugee contracting system listed here:

RELATED ARTICLES:

Britain will ban electronic devices on flights from six Middle Eastern nations amid terror threat

Federal refugee grants to special ethnic groups “to promote community organizing”

Montana: Bill to Ban Foreign Laws Including Sharia Passes in House Jdiciary

Hillary’s ‘Libyan legacy’ still responsible for invasion of Europe as Italy panics

Invasion of Europe news….

I’m not going to let you all forget that it was Hillary and her girls who were responsible for the overthrow of Libyan strongman Muammar Ghaddafi that resulted in the opening of the flood gates from Africa to Europe for tens of thousands of mostly economic migrants from the heart of Africa to countries like Italy geographically on the frontline of the invasion.

Left to right – Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and Samantha Power

Even Obama didn’t have the stomach for the slaughter of Ghaddafi.  I followed the whole sorry tale from its earliest days here at RRW.

Of course the Europeans made that fatal mistake in the earliest days of the invasion by not turning back (using safe methods) the first boats that were launched from the Libyan coast. Now they rescue each one sending a signal to people smugglers to keep ’em coming!

Susan Rice, Hillary and Samantha Power. Hillary admitted that in 2011 Obama was reluctant to follow Europe’s lead and get involved in Libya, but that she marshaled the forces (including Susan Rice and Samantha Power) to persuade Obama to help overthrow Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Ultimately, she said, it was the President’s decision thereby tossing blame back on Obama when the results of her actions have proven so disastrous.

Here is the latest news from Middle East Monitor:

hillary-clinton-benghazi-phone-transcripts-696x364Italy panics as North Africa migrants surge

Italy will host a meeting between European and North African countries next week in a bid to strengthen support for an agreement it struck with Libya to fight people smuggling as migrant arrivals surge.

The prime minister of the UN-backed government in Tripoli, Fayez Al-Seraj, will meet with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and interior ministers from eight European countries including Germany and France on Monday.

Last month, Italy pledged money, training and equipment to help Libya fight people smugglers, a deal that was endorsed by European Union member states.

But Libya is still far from stable. Two governments are vying for power – in Tobruk to the east and Tripoli to the west – and the country remains mired in factional fighting and lawlessness.

The authorities in eastern Libya have rejected the deal struck between Rome and Tripoli.

“I’m not so naive as to not understand the situation there,” Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti told reporters. “But we cannot remain immobile and wait for the country to stabilise.”

He said the Libya agreement and next week’s meeting were not just “talk”, but strategic steps toward managing mass migration to Europe.

So far this year more than 16,000 migrants – a 36 per cent increase on the same period last year – have been rescued at sea and brought to Italy after Libya-based people smugglers piled them onto flimsy boats.

Don’t miss Hillary cackling about her success in killing Gaddafi. She looks like an absolute loon here:

Another version of Hillary’s looney laugh, is here. Don’t you think it might be too early for her to come out of the woods!

Our archives on the ‘Invasion of Europe’ are here.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

If SD governor willing to do this, why not take next step, join the Tennessee States’ rights case?

MONTANA: Never too soon to make sure Islamic ‘sharia’ law doesn’t creep into your state as it has in others

The Hijab’s Progression To Symbol Of Political Oppression

Geert Wilders’ Post-election Statement: ‘The Genie cannot be put back in the bottle’

geert wilders party logoDear friends,

Yesterday, the Party for Freedom (PVV) gained 33% and rose from 15 to 20 seats. That is a result to be proud of. However, Prime Minister Rutte won the elections, despite losing 8 seats.

We were the third biggest party, but now we are the second biggest party in the Dutch Parliament and a major political force. I promise you: Next time we will be first! The genie cannot be put back in the bottle.

I assure you: We will not stop trying to save our beautiful country, the Netherlands, our European civilization and our Western freedoms.

We are grateful for the interest and sympathy of freedom loving people all over the free world. And we will continue to inform you about our efforts and progress in the years ahead.

As ever,

Geert Wilders

dutch parties seats

Hawaii Judge Places Restraining Order on President’s Refugee Pause EO

Unless I find a definitive article about what exactly the judge in Hawaii ruled on the Trump Executive Order in the next couple of hours (I have a doc appt.), here is one news story from the AP (thanks to reader Theodore).

Judge Derrick Watson.

Also, according to several news sources discussing other pending cases, including Fox Newsone argument in the Maryland case is absolutely nuts.  I worry that judges ruling on the cases have no idea about what the US Refugee Act of 1980 says or how the program has been administered for 37 years!

Story “One Unelected Leftist Judge in Hawaii Decided Security for the Entire NationIt makes me want to scream!

The line that I see while searching just now, that is being spread by many news sources, is this one:

“The Maryland lawsuit also argues that it’s against federal law for the Trump administration to reduce the number of refugees allowed into the United States this year by more than half, from 110,000 to 50,000. Attorneys argued that if that aspect of the ban takes effect, 60,000 people would be stranded in war-torn countries with nowhere else to go.”

We are assuming that comes from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society suit we reported here. The true gist of their argument is that they, the federal resettlement contractors, were expecting more paying “clients” and had built their budgets around the per head payment they were expecting with the unrealistic 110,000 refugees Obama said would come in the year he no longer was president!

For the umpteenth time, that 110,000 that Obama set last fall is a CEILING that the Administration says it will not surpass, it is not a goal!

And, that 110,000 was the highest Obama had ever set in his presidency.  Trump has the absolute authority to reduce the ceiling, but more importantly he can bring in any number under whatever he set, or whatever Obama set!

Forget the EO!

President Trump has all the authority he needs to not import any more refugees this entire year (I’m not sure that his team even knows that he has no legal obligation to bring in even 50,000!).

As of this morning, we have admitted 38,106 refugees this fiscal year (2017) via Wrapsnet.  783 refugees arrived in the ten day period from the announcement of this EO and today when the “moratorium” was to go in to effect.

I repeat!  The President does not have to call it a moratorium or include it in this EO. He can simply stop processing new refugees abroad with no further explanation!

President George W. Bush had 4 years under 50,000! His lowest year was 39,554.  Even Obama had two years under 60,000 and well below the ceiling!  See here.

Now look at this chart (below) very carefully.   When I found it at Wrapsnet, the last year, 2016, was not complete.  Know that we brought in just short of the 85,000 ceiling (a rare occurrence).

The federal refugee resettlement contractors have long wanted the president’s ‘determination’ each year to be a GOAL (a target) not a CEILING! But, the law says it is a ceiling. Look at the column for CEILING and the column for the number actually admitted!

What do you see?  Rarely does the number admitted reach the CEILING.

In FY2006, they were 28,777 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue the President?
In FY2007, they were 21,718 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue the President?
In FY2008, they were 19,809 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue the President?
In FY2009, they were 5,346 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue the President?
In FY2010, they were 6,689 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue the President?
In FY2011, they were 23,576 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue President Obama?
In FY2012, they were 17,762 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue President Obama for leaving thousands “stranded in war-torn countries”?

Obama got closer to the lowered CEILING over the next few years.

You get my drift!

Be sure to note that Obama never set a ceiling as high as 110,000 in all his previous years as president. That 110,000 was set in the final months of his final year! The average admissions over the years shown here is around 65,000. I could not find the chart that includes the last month of FY16, but we admitted only a few refugees short of the 85,000 ceiling because the Administration was hell-bent to get in thousands of Syrians.

I’m begging ignorant and lazy reporters to get the facts!

And, I am sure you are scared as heck, as I am, to see judges making decisions based on sheer ignorance of the law.

See my post from last Friday about how Hawaii hypocrites! have “welcomed” only a tiny number of refugees over the years—none from Africa and only 5 (total) from two Muslim countries.

This post is filed in our Trump Watch! category as well as ‘refugee statistics’ and ‘where to find information.’

RELATED ARTICLES: 

What 2 Obama Judges Got Wrong in Striking Down Travel Executive Order

California judge seeks to prevent immigration arrests inside state courts

Refuting, once again, the big lie about 18-24 months of vetting!

Canadians who want Immigrants Screened for ‘anti-Canadian values’ Attacked by Establishment Media

Monday’s headlines proclaimed “disappointment” and “concern” over a new CROP poll of Canadians’ attitudes toward immigration.

Despite the extraordinarily painstaking efforts by leftist leaders, the media and Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups such as the National Council of Canadian Muslims (former CAIR-CAN), all serving as thought police, Canadians are not quite that naive. Given the voluminous liberal outrage against the former Conservative party’s “Zero Tolerance Against Barbaric Cultural Practices Act” and the federal, provincial and municipal anti-Islamophobia agenda that is being forced upon Canadians, still Canadians support the screening of immigrants for “anti-Canadian values.” Yes, values screening. It is not racist, xenophobic, “Islamophobic” or any other kind of phobic to want to protect Canadian freedoms from sharia incursions, and, indeed, from barbaric practices from any culture. They have no place in Canada.

The article below states:

Of course we can’t empirically test for violent tendencies, misogyny and indolence. There are many good practical reasons not to pursue these policies.

We can however, implement a zero tolerance policy against barbaric practices that violate the constitution, and put an end once and for all to initiatives that potentially threaten the principles of a free society, such as “Islamophobia” initiatives. All such endeavors should be put to rest. The history of “anti-Islamophobia” drives are nefarious. They are being forced upon the West by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and have caused damaging divisions among Canadians. Muslims are protected by existing laws in the same way as is any other group: hate laws are already in place, and that is enough.

“Most Canadians support ‘values screening’ — which is neither surprising nor concerning”, by Chris Selley, National Post, March 13, 2017:

Monday’s headlines proclaimed “disappointment” and “concern” over a new CROP poll of Canadians’ attitudes toward immigration. “A majority of Canadians express concerns,” Société Radio-Canada declared on its home page. Notably, we learned that 74 per cent of respondents support implementing (as the pollsters put it) “a test of values to identify (potential immigrants) who have ‘anti-Canadian’ values.”

That’s Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch’s signature immigration proposal: personal interviews for all new immigrants; values screening; and passing the extra costs on to the new arrivals. This is by no means the first poll to find widespread support for the ideas. And one wonders how often we need to learn of it before we stop being shocked and disappointed — or even particularly concerned.

In theory, in isolation, the ideas are perfectly defensible. All immigrants got personal interviews until 2002. Immigrants pay all manner of fees throughout the process. And if we could somehow empirically test potential immigrants for violent tendencies, misogyny and indolence — three “anti-Canadian values” Leitch has suggested — then we surely would.

To hear some of Leitch’s opponents, you would think the idea of pushing “Canadian values” on immigrants — if not the very idea of “Canadian values” — was beyond the pale. Of course it is not. The “A Look at Canada” citizenship guide — the Liberal one, which the Conservatives replaced amidst apocalyptic howls — says Canadian values include equal rights, “respect for cultural differences,” “freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of religion,” and “law and order.” Being proud of “our international role as peacekeepers” is a Canadian value, it says.

Why push these supposed values on immigrants in book form, but not in person? Are they important or aren’t they?

Of course we can’t empirically test for violent tendencies, misogyny and indolence. There are many good practical reasons not to pursue these policies. The consensus among bien-pensant campaign watchers is that this is nothing more than a populist “dog whistle” appeal to nativists and xenophobes who believe immigrants are more likely to be violent, misogynist and indolent.

But most Canadians aren’t watching the campaign at all, and couldn’t pick Leitch out of a lineup. If you ask them whether Canada should screen immigrants for objectively undesirable traits, then of course most are going to say yes. It’s absurd to hold that up as evidence of a surge in anti-immigrant sentiment, especially when the poll in question provides plenty of evidence to the contrary: 78 per cent think immigration makes Canada a better place to live or makes little difference; 83 per cent think we have much to learn from other cultures; 79 per cent have no desire to see a Trump-style figure in Canadian politics.

If you were inclined to worry about anti-immigrant sentiment, there’s plenty you could latch on to in this 61-page poll that’s far more disquieting than support for “values screening.” But that’s the genius of a wedge issue like this: it provokes a level of outrage and condemnation that to those not following closely would seem unhinged, which in turn makes the policy and the candidate seem all the more reasonable by comparison.

“Leitch’s proposal to screen every immigrant and visitor is nothing but Donald Trump’s executive order, disguised as Canadian values, and crafted to keep Muslims out of Canada,” leadership candidate Deepak Obhrai said in a statement last week. He suggested it could incite racists to murder, such as in Kansas last month.

I’m disgusted by Leitch’s campaign and even I think that’s crazy. But more to the point, it won’t help. Fighting populism with hyperbole is like fighting fire with kerosene, and it’s strange how few anti-populists seem to realize this. If Leitch’s proposal weren’t surrounded by a bunch of exploding heads and people screaming “Trump! TRUMP!” at her, it would just be one silly, unpractical and unnecessary idea among dozens in play in this campaign.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Canada: Hindus Confront Liberal MP Over Islamic Prayers in Schools, Blasphemy Law (video)

Tennessee files constitutional challenge to refugee settlement program

Robert Spencer Video: Parents of People Killed by Muslim Hit Trump for Calling Murders Terrorism

Since President Trump took office over 2,400 refugees from travel-ban countries entered U.S.

Pew Research has done a handy little summary of where we stand with refugees admitted this fiscal year, but most importantly they made a useful graph of how many entered from travel-restricted countries since the first week of December, through Trump’s inauguration and up to last Friday.

There is nothing we haven’t already been talking about as we reported also from Wrapsnet over recent weeks and months, but they put it in a neat little package for your review on the eve of the 120-day moratorium on refugee resettlement.

Pew Research Center:

A total of 2,466 refugees from six countries under new travel restrictions – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – have resettled in the United States since Donald Trump became president, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. State Department data. The number of refugees from the six travel-restricted countries represents 32% of all refugees who have entered the U.S. since Trump took office.

Pew continues….

Including refugees from countries with no travel restrictions, a total of 7,594 refugees have entered the U.S. during Trump’s first seven weeks in office (Jan. 21 to March 10). Of these refugees, 3,410 are Muslims (45%) and 3,292 are Christians (43%), with other religions or the religiously unaffiliated accounting for the rest.

So far in fiscal 2017 (which began Oct. 1, 2016), refugees who hold citizenship from the six restricted countries have accounted for more than a third (34%) of 37,716 refugee admissions.

More here.

President Trump has set the ceiling for the entire 2017 fiscal year at 50,000, a number we explained here is not that low!

This post is filed in our Trump Watch! category as well as ‘refugee statistics’ and ‘where to find information.’

EndNote: It is amusing to me to see research/articles like this because for years and years (I started writing RRW in 2007) no one paid any attention to the numbers, religions and ethnicities of refugees entering the US. It is nice to see so many news outlets educating the public!

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Flow chart for refugee admissions shows where Trump team could downsize program with funding cuts

California judge seeks to prevent immigration arrests inside state courts

Horowitz: Where is Congress? Why are they not helping Trump on immigration?

Middle East experts: Kurdish safe zones could thwart Iranian threat to Israel

One report: Trump Department of State to cut funding to UN by 50%

Tennessee files suit against federal government over cost to state of refugee program

It’s been a  long time coming, but yesterday, the State of Tennessee filed its Tenth Amendment case against the US Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services over the issue of cost-shifting of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to the states.

Readers, this is big news!

Here is Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart yesterday (I see that Drudge featured the story last night and Fox News has picked it up as well):

The Thomas More Law Center filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Tennessee General Assembly and the State of Tennessee in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee on Monday challenging the federal refugee resettlement program for violating the state’s sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit places Tennessee at the center of the national debate concerning the operation of the federal refugee resettlement program.

President Trump will be holding a rally in Nashville on Wednesday to garner public support for his agenda. His revised Executive Order 13780 temporarily halting the federal refugee resettlement program and temporarily banning travel from six Middle Eastern countries goes into effect on Thursday.

[….]

The Refugee Act specified that 100 percent of each state’s cost of Medicaid and cash welfare benefits provided to each resettled refugee during their first 36 months in the United State would be reimbursed to each state by the federal government. However, within five years of having created the federal program, Congress failed to appropriate sufficient funding and instead, costs of the federal program began shifting to state governments.

Within ten years of passing the Refugee Act, the federal government eliminated all reimbursement of state costs, a huge financial cost to the states that was, in effect, yet another unfunded federal mandate.

[….]

The lawsuit seeks to define Tennessee’s rights in light of the forced expenditure of state funds in support of a federal program from which the state has formally withdrawn.

Continue here and see below the full text of the press release from the Thomas More Law Center.

For all of you in states that have withdrawn from the program***, you must push your governor and legislators to join this case.

If your state has not withdrawn and is willing to sue on states’ rights grounds, this is the direction you should be following: withdraw and then sue when the feds assign a non-profit to run the program!

To further your understanding, here (and below) is the full press release from the Thomas More Law Center, yesterday:

First in the Nation — Tennessee Files Lawsuit Challenging Constitutionality of the Federal Refugee Resettlement Program

ANN ARBOR, MI – The Thomas More Law Center, a national nonprofit public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, MI, today filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the State of Tennessee, the Tennessee General Assembly, and two State legislators, challenging the constitutionality of the federal refugee resettlement program as a violation of the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the principles of State sovereignty.

Defendants in the lawsuit include the U.S Departments of State and Health and Human Services, and their respective Secretaries.

Assisting the Thomas More Law Center, pro bono, is attorney B. Tyler Brooks with the law firm of Millberg Gordon Stewart PLLC located in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, noted, “Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts has observed, ‘The States are separate and independent sovereigns. Sometimes they have to act like it.’ We intend to follow that advice in our lawsuit on behalf of the State of Tennessee and its citizens. We are asking the Court to stop the bleeding out of millions of Tennessee taxpayer dollars each year to fund a federal program from which the State officially withdrew in 2007.”

Thompson added, “Although there are compelling policy reasons to dismantle the existing refugee resettlement program in favor of resettling refugees in Middle East safe- zones as President Trump has suggested, this lawsuit focuses solely on the unconstitutional way the federal program is currently operating in the State of Tennessee.”

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. The purpose of the lawsuit is not to inflict harm on refugees, but to preserve the balanced constitutional relationship between the federal government and the States. It seeks a court declaration that the federal government has violated the Tenth Amendment and an order permanently enjoining the federal government from forcing the State of Tennessee to pay money out of its treasury to finance the federal refugee resettlement program.

The Tennessee General Assembly, by overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate, passed Senate Joint Resolution 467 (“SJR 467”) during the 2016 legislative session, which authorized legal action to stop the federal government from unconstitutionally commandeering State funds to finance the federal refugee resettlement program.

State Senator John Stevens and State Representative Terri Lynn Weaver are the two legislators who joined the lawsuit as individual plaintiffs. Senator Stevens is First Vice-Chair of the Senate’s Standing Committee on Finance, Ways and Means, which is responsible for all measures relating to taxes and oversight of public monies in the State’s treasury. Representative Terri Lynn Weaver is the Chairman of the House Transportation Subcommittee which is charged with oversight of the budget relating to transportation.

Senator Stevens stated, “Through federal economic dragooning of our State’s budget, past Presidents and Congresses have quieted my vote and thereby my constituents’ voices. President Trump through executive action has reversed the overreaches of the Obama Administration in numerous ways. I trust President Trump in this regard. However, he needs our help.”

Continued Stevens, “The Constitution does not allow the Federal Government to force me as the elected representative of the 24th Senate District to implement federal programs while they sit in Washington insulated from the consequences.”

Representative Weaver, who played an instrumental role in mobilizing legislative support for passage of SJR 467, commented, “Of all the legislation that I have worked on, this by far is the most important. The only way we can get back to our constitutional beginnings and the intent birthed by our Founding Fathers is to go and take it back. We are looking forward to linking arms with the Thomas More Law Center for the long haul to regain sovereignty for our great State.”

Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, another strong advocate for the lawsuit, emphasized the point that the lawsuit should not be taken as a criticism of the Trump Administration, “We want to convey to the President that we support his efforts concerning immigration and refugee resettlement and believe this suit for declaratory relief is consistent with what would likely be his position regarding states like Tennessee which have withdrawn from the refugee resettlement program but are forced to continue paying costs associated with it.”

When Congress enacted the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980, the explicit intent was to assure full federal reimbursement of the costs for each refugee resettled and participating in benefit programs provided by the states. Eventually, however, federal reimbursements to the states for these benefit programs were reduced and, by 1991, eliminated entirely. The states thereby became responsible for the costs of the programs originally covered by the federal government.

Tennessee officially withdrew from participation in the refugee resettlement program in 2007. However, instead of honoring Tennessee’s decision to withdraw from the program, the federal government merely bypassed the State and appointed Catholic Charities of Tennessee, a private, non-governmental organization to administer the program. Catholic Charities receives revenue based upon the number of refugees it brings into the State.

Currently, Tennessee State revenues that could otherwise be used for State programs to help Tennesseans are, in effect, appropriated by the federal government to support the federal refugee resettlement program. This arrangement displaces Tennessee’s constitutionally mandated funding prerogatives and appropriations process.

The Complaint is here.

The Thomas More Law Center defends and promotes America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and moral values, including the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life. It supports a strong national defense and an independent and sovereign United States of America. The Law Center accomplishes its mission through litigation, education, and related activities. It does not charge for its services. The Law Center is supported by contributions from individuals, corporations and foundations, and is recognized by the IRS as a section 501(c)(3) organization. You may reach the Thomas More Law Center at (734) 827-2001 or visit our website at http://www.thomasmore.org.

NOTE: These are the so-called Wilson-Fish states that have withdrawn from the program over the years.

In addition to these below, several states have withdrawn in the last year and those include: Texas, Kansas, New Jersey and Maine. Florida is considering it right now.

Texas citizen activists must press your governor. He has already shown a willingness to sue the feds, but this is a much stronger case!

To the right of the state (and one county) is the federal NGO running the program in the state (I don’t know who has been assigned in the 4 recent withdrawals mentioned above):

Alabama: USCCB – Catholic Social Services
Alaska: USCCB – Catholic Social Services
Colorado: Colorado Department of Human Services
Idaho: Janus Inc. (formerly Mountain States Group), Idaho Office for Refugees
Kentucky: USCCB – Catholic Charities of Louisville, Kentucky Office for Refugees
Louisiana: USCCB – Catholic Charities Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana Office for Refugees
Massachusetts: Office for Refugees and Immigrants
Nevada: USCCB – Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada
North Dakota: LIRS – Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota
San Diego County, CA: USCCB – Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego
South Dakota: LIRS – Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota
Tennessee: USCCB – Catholic Charities of Tennessee, Tennessee Office for Refugees
Vermont: USCRI – Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program

RELATED ARTICLES:

Tennessee became the first state in the nation on Monday to sue the federal government over refugee resettlement

Hawaii teacher says he will not teach illegal immigrant students – Story | WFLD

The Radical Ties of the Imam Behind the Trump Immigration Lawsuit by Jordan Schachtel

Originally published in the Conservative Review, March 10, 2017:

The plaintiff listed in Hawaii’s lawsuit against President Trump’s executive order on immigration is a member of an organization that has several current and former leaders tied to terrorist activity.

Dr. Ismail Elshikh — the imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii — is suing Trump in reaction to the second version of his immigration moratorium, which was signed on Monday. The order imposed a 90-day hold on foreign nationals from six terror-tied countries from entering the United States.

According to the Muslim Association of Hawaii website, Imam Elshikh is a member of the North American Imam Federation (NAIF), a fringe Islamic organization that has a board and current leadership stacked with radical Islamic connections.

Kyle Shideler, a terrorism expert and director of the Threat Information Office at the Center for Security Policy, tells CR that it’s concerning that Imam Elshikh is a part of NAIF.

“Given NAIF’s history it should come as no surprise that the end goal of this lawsuit is, ultimately, weakening American counter-terrorism or immigration security efforts,” Shideler said.

He added: “That a member of an organization whose leaders have included a convicted war criminal, an individual who defended donating money to a Hamas linked charity, and an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism bombing wants to tell the American people who they can admit for immigration should say a lot about why such an executive order is needed in the first place.”

Steven Emerson, the executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, also voiced his concerns about Elshikh’s associations. He tells CR:

“NAIF is an extremely radical Islamist group whose leaders and members have defended some of the most violent terrorist groups in the world. Some members have been found to be actually linked to acts of Islamist terrorism. This is a group, some prosecutors have argued, whose incitement for violence could qualify their categorization as a providing material support for terrorism.”

Current NAIF board members include the former leader of an al-Qaeda-connected mosque and a radical preacher. Former leaders include a man convicted of leading an international death squad, and a prominent Islamist preacher who has praised Osama bin Laden.

Current NAIF leadership

Omar Shahin, a current board member of NAIF, is the former president of the Islamic Center of Tucson, a mosque that was once utilized as the “de-facto al-Qaeda headquarters in the United States,” according to the Investigative Project on Terrorism. As imam of the mosque, Shahin raised funds for the Holy Land Foundation, which was later shut down for funneling money to the terrorist group Hamas. He also held fundraisers for the Global Relief Foundation, which was later deemed by the U.S. Treasury Department to be connected to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

El Shikh received his PhD from the Graduate Theological Foundation Islamic Studies Department, which is headed by Shahin. The program was created in collaboration with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an organization that was started as a Muslim Brotherhood front group.

Dr. Waleed Meneese, another NAIF board member, has explicitly called for fellow Muslims to kill Jews. “When the Children of Israel returned to cause corruption in the time of our Prophet Muhammad,” Meneese said in a recent sermon. “And they disbelieved him, God destroyed him at his hand. In any case, God Almighty has promised them destruction whenever they cause corruption,” he said of the Jewish people.

Meneese has also called for the killing of apostates from Islam, and for the treating of non-Muslims as second-class citizens.

Former NAIF leadership

Ashrafuzzaman Khan is the former president of NAIF and a current leader at the Muslim Brotherhood-connected Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). In 2013, he was tried in a Bangladesh court as he was accused of drafting a kill list of intellectuals inside the country. He was charged with 11 counts of war crimes as the alleged leader of the Al-Badr death squad. In 2013, he and an accomplice were sentenced in absentia for the abduction and murder of 18 people, including nine university professors, six journalists, and three physicians.

Egyptian cleric Wagdi Ghoneim was the chairman of NAIF at the turn of the century. In 2005, he agreed to deportation to Qatar after U.S. authorities were concerned about his potential connections to terrorist organizations. Ghoneim has called Osama bin Laden a “martyred heroic mujahid” and is now closely tied to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. He has been banned from entering several countries due to his radicalism.

LINK: Wagdi Ghoneim Video

Another former NAIF board member is Siraj Wahhaj, who was infamously listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Wahhaj testified in defense of the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, who served a life sentence for being the mastermind behind terrorist plots in the United States.

What else?

The North American Imam Federation is perhaps best known as the group that allegedly planned and staged the “flying imams” incident. After a 2006 NAIF conference, several imams connected to the group were booted from a domestic flight after exhibiting bizarre, threatening behavior, terrifying fellow passengers. NAIF and the Hamas-tied Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) showcased the incident as a prime example of America’s supposed problem with “Islamophobia.”

President Trump’s immigration moratorium, blocking non-citizens from coming into the U.S. from the six terror havens of Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Libya, will go into effect next week, barring a successful legal challenge by Elshikh and Hawaii or other actors.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

A Short History of Islam in Hawaii

DTN: North American Imams Federation 

Is there ‘racial bigotry’ among practitioners of the ‘religion of peace’?

Fighting a war on two fronts! Some Muslims believe “we shouldn’t talk about anti-blackness within the community, because we’re under siege by Islamophobes. This is not the right time to air internal laundry.” – Kameelah Rashad, University of Pennsylvania.

Yup, you know it is true!  Or, why would Somali Muslims, for example, want to build their own mosques in a community where  the Arab Muslims already had one?

Kameelah Rashad (right) with Linda Sansour. Photo: Philly.com

Also, according to The Atlantic there is a split between immigrant Muslims (many black) and the long-established (well-off) Arabs in America.  The tension within the ‘community’ burst in to full-flower, we are told, at a December Muslim conference in Toronto.

Rashad says she is fighting a war on two fronts—racism within Muslim ‘community’ and Islamophobia everywhere else.

The article is a bit disjointed (or maybe it is me!).  Or, could that be because the author can’t quite present the politically-incorrect information in a straightforward manner?

[BTW, when you have a few minutes look around at the many historical reports about how light-skinned Arab Muslims enslaved Africans for over a thousand years.]

Here are a few snips of Emma Green’s article at The Atlantic [emphasis is mine]:

Muslim Americans Are United by Trump—and Divided by Race

When weary Muslims gathered in Toronto in December for an annual retreat, marking the end of a tumultuous U.S. election year, they probably didn’t expect the event to turn into a referendum on racial tensions within the American Muslim community. But it did.

[….]

Even though slightly less than one-third of American Muslims are black, according to Pew Research Center, American Muslims are most often represented in the media as Arab or South Asian immigrants. The distinction between the African-American Muslim experience and that of their immigrant co-religionists has long been a source of racial tension in the Muslim community, but since the election, things have gotten both better and worse. While some Muslims seem to be paying more attention to racism because of Donald Trump, others fear that any sign of internal division is dangerous for Muslims in a time of increased hostility.

While the Toronto conference was upsetting, Evans [Ubaydullah Evans, the executive director of the American Learning Institute for Muslims, who is black] said, he doesn’t think it’s representative of the biggest racial problems in the American Muslim community. White racism toward black people is “not the kind of racism that circumscribes my life as an American Muslim,” he told me. “It’s the social racism I experience from people of Arab descent, of Southeast Asian descent. This is the racism no one is talking about.” [Wait!  I thought only white Europeans could be racists! Arabs too?—ed]

[….]

The wave of immigration that shaped today’s American Muslim population began in the 1960s, after Congress lifted previous race-based restrictions on immigration. In many ways, this surge was directly connected to the work of black Muslims and others involved in the civil-rights movement: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 allowed far greater numbers of people from Asia and Africa to emigrate to the U.S. As of 2014, an estimated 61 percent of Muslims were immigrants, according to Pew, and another 17 percent were the children of immigrants. Many of the perceived racial tensions among Muslims come from conflicts between these immigrant communities and non-immigrants, who are often black.

[….]

Omar Suleiman (Dallas Imam): American Muslim population segregated by ethnicity and income.

“Immigrant Muslims had a convenient comfort zone,” said Omar Suleiman, an imam based in Dallas with a large online following. As each new immigrant community established its own mosques and community centers, portions of the Muslim American population became segregated by ethnicity and income.

For non-black Muslims who grew up in the suburbs, attended private schools, and rarely encountered black Muslims in their mosques, it’s easy “to internalize many of the poisonous notions about the black community that … diminish the pain of those communities,” he said.

“I think a lot of African American Muslims see a hypocrisy sometimes with immigrant Muslims,” said Saba Maroof, a Muslim psychiatrist with a South Asian background who lives in Michigan. “We say that Muslims are all equal in the eyes of God, that racism doesn’t exist in Islam.” And yet, cases of overt racism aren’t uncommon, like when South Asian or Arab immigrant parents don’t want their kids to marry black Muslims. “That happened in my family,” she said.

[….]

Some Muslims believe “we shouldn’t talk about anti-blackness within the community, because we’re under siege by Islamophobes. This is not the right time to air internal laundry,” Rashad [Kameelah Rashad, a black Muslim chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania] said. But “if I have to contend with anti-Muslim bigotry outside of the Muslim community, and within my own community, I’m having to push back on anti-black racism, I’m kind of fighting a war on two fronts.”

There is much more, continue reading here.

Melting pot myth exploded!

So, not only do we have a lack of assimilation among the many ethnic and religious groups we are admitting to the U.S., we obviously have it within Islam in America too!

RELATED ARTICLES:

In the past year, 600,000 Afghans have returned home, so why are we bringing more to the U.S.?

Why are we taking any ‘refugees’ from Israel?

Judge refuses to halt Trump’s new immigration order

Judge James Robart, who issued a temporary restraining order against the initial ban in February, declined to apply it to the new executive order. Perhaps he was stung by the criticism: in his first restraining order, he falsely claimed that no jihad terror attacks had been committed by migrants from the countries covered in the ban, when in reality there had been many.

Could this be an indication that the hard-Left, out-of-control judiciary is finally having to demonstrate more responsibility? Unlikely, but it’s still a good sign.

“Judge Refuses To Halt Trump’s New Immigration Order,” by Kerry Picket, Daily Caller, March 10, 2017:

A federal district court denied a request to place an emergency restraining order on President Donald Trump’s modified immigration executive order, an attorney representing states opposing the order told Reuters Friday night.

The initial executive order posted by the Trump administration — which restricted travel from seven countries with majority Muslim populations — last January was challenged by lawyers in states such as Washington and Minnesota.

Seattle U.S. District Court Judge James Robart issued a temporary restraining order against the initial policy last month.

The new order narrowed the travel restriction down to six countries and would give exception to green card holders among other changes. According to Reuters, Robart did not apply his restraining order to the new immigration order….

RELATED ARTICLE: UK: 5,500 cases of FGM in 2016 alone, not a single prosecution

The Trojan Horse of Terrorism

In a March 7, 2017 story by Dan Bilefsky, headlined “Hungary Approves Detention of Asylum Seekers in Guarded Camps,” the New York Times reported that,

“Europe’s simmering backlash against immigration came into sharp relief on Tuesday when the Hungarian Parliament approved the detention of asylum seekers in guarded and enclosed camps on the country’s southern border, in what human rights advocates called a reckless breach of international law.”

According to the Times,

“Prime Minister Viktor Orban justified the measure on the grounds that it would secure the European Union’s borders from migrants and act as a powerful deterrent against migration, which he called the ‘Trojan horse of terrorism.’ ”

The Prime Minister is quoted as saying,

“We are under siege.  The flood of migration has slowed down but has not stopped.  Laws apply to everyone.  This includes those migrants who want to cross Hungary’s border illegally.  This is the reality, which cannot be overruled by charming human rights nonsense.”

Unfortunately, it is “charming human rights nonsense” that now informs immigration policy on the political left in the United States, just as it has in most Western European nations.  While liberals and Democrats oppose any and all limitations on immigration from majority Muslim countries… in the apparent hope that American Muslims will repay the favor by becoming a reliable Democratic voting bloc… even they express concern over the potential for isolated terror attacks in the near term.  What apparently escapes their attention is the clearly stated long term goal of Muslim migration: the complete domination of Islam over all the nations of the world.

In his first speech before a joint session of Congress on February 28, President Trump paused, gazed directly into the camera, and carefully enunciated words that Barack Obama famously refused to utter. He said,

“Our obligation is to serve, protect, and defend the citizens of the United States… We are also taking strong measures to protect our nation from radical Islamic terrorism.”

However, as appealing and as essential as that resolve might be, by focusing only on the unspeakable atrocities of radical Islamists, we run the risk of overlooking or downplaying what is an even more deadly and more pervasive long term threat: the danger of what Hungarian Prime Minister Orban referred to as the “Trojan horse of terrorism,” the unfettered flow of Muslim migrants and refugees across international frontiers into the Western world.

In his book, Slavery, Terrorism, and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat, Dr. Peter Hammond explains something that every Christian, every Jew, and every other non-Muslim on the face of the Earth must understand… which is that Islam does not qualify as a religion in the normally accepted sense of the word.  Instead, as a complete legal, political, economic, social, and military system with a religious component, the West’s dangerous flirtation with multiculturalism can only be described as “charming human rights nonsense.”  And while most non-Muslims worry about the possibility of being murdered in an isolated “lone wolf” terror attack, they all but ignore the long term implications of Muslim expansionism.    

Dr. Hammond explains the process of “stealth jihadism” carried out by muhajirs, or Muslim immigrants.  He tells us that “Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges.  When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well.”

In his May 8, 2015 treatise, titled, Islam, Interreligious Dialogue, and Evangelization, Andre Villeneuve, Ph.D. of Saint John Vianney Seminary, describes the ecumenical schizophrenia displayed by the Catholic Church in their approach to Islam in just the past two decades.  He quotes Pope Benedict XVI in his Regensburg Lecture of September 12, 2006.  Benedict quoted the 14th century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, who said,

“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

However, Villeneuve goes on to describe a contrary view held by the current prelate, Pope Francis.  He writes,

“After praising the commitment to prayer, faith, devotion, and ethical values of many Muslims, (Pope) Francis encourages Christians to adopt a welcoming attitude towards the increasing number of Muslim immigrants in traditionally Christian countries, while asking for a reciprocal freedom of worship for Christians living in Muslim countries.”

Reciprocal freedom of worship?  It is, at best, a naive pipe-dream.  While a few majority Muslim nations have tolerated Christian congregations in their midst, many of those Christians are now victims of genocide.  To expect that those attitudes will ever change is worse than naïve… it is dangerous and it is suicidal.

Christians are taught from early childhood to heed the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:39.  In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said,

“But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

As the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, Pope Francis is obliged to instruct his flock to “turn the other cheek.”  However, while that counter-intuitive advice may be valuable to me in a one-on-one relationship with my next door neighbor or a co-worker, just how far does it go?  In other words, how are we to react when all of western civilization hangs in the balance?

On September 3, 2011, Swiss parliamentarian Oskar Freysinger, of the Christian Democratic People’s Party addressed some very important thoughts to a Berlin audience… thoughts that the American people would do well to hear and heed in 2017.  He said, in part, “My dear Berlin friends, I come to you today as a neighbor and as a concerned friend…”

Referring to the rules imposed on non-Muslims living in majority Muslim nations, Freysinger said, “The dhimmi attitude of Europeans sustained a wound which must not heal over if the millennia-old European civilization is to survive, for Europe is more than a plot of land, more than a continent, more than the sum of its countries.  Europe is an idea, a cultural landscape, an intellectual space shaped by history.  Europe is the cradle of the modern constitutional state, the treasure house of human rights, of freedom of opinion and expression.

“This is ever more strongly endangered by the possibility that our political elite will bend their necks before (an Islamic) religious dogma that is alien to our intellectual history, our values, and our constitutional state.  This dogma is gnawing away at the pillars of our system of laws, wherever it is allowed some space.  This dogma demands total obedience from its followers.

“They are in no case to integrate into our value system.  That would be like treason and can even be punished with death.  They are expected to conquer our intellectual home, make the Western world subject.  Not with tanks, rockets, or riflemen.  Not through brutal revolution.  No, Islam is in no hurry.  It has an eternity.  A long process of softening up and leisurely occupation of our child-poor society is foreseen.  The Islamic doctrine is expected to gradually creep into everyday life and Fortress Europe will crumble from within.

“And what are we doing?  We are allowing this violent doctrine, unhindered in cultural ghettos, to strain at toppling the nation of laws…  When women are beaten and whole city districts are taken over, we look the other way.  We believe we can soften the power hunger of the holy warriors with welfare money.  We believe we can buy peace! What lunacy!  No one fingers the Prophet’s beard.  Fanatics cannot be bought.  Germany should know that better than any country in the world…”

He concluded by saying, “If we lose this battle there will be no second chance, for Islam does not give back what it has conquered.  So I summon all the humanists of this continent not to keep their heads in the sand and to resist the Islamic dogma’s drive to conquest.  Let us stand together and uncompromisingly insist upon the primacy of our civil law over any religious dogma.  Let us find our way back to our precious intellectual heritage.  Islam is only as strong as we are weak”

It is estimated that, by the end of this century, in the absence of some unforeseen divine intervention, Muslims will exceed 50 percent of the world’s population.  But long before that time, it is reasonable to assume that most of 21st century Western civilization will have become unraveled and our descendants will find themselves facing a squalid 7th century lifestyle. As Prime Minister Orban so aptly describes it, the current level of Muslim immigration into the West can best be described as the “Trojan horse of terrorism.”  Left unfettered, it can have no good end.  As matters now stand, we cannot assume that the Europe we have known and loved for many centuries, and from which our forbears emerged, will continue to exist beyond ten or twenty more years.

While Europe may be the “cradle of the modern constitutional state, the treasure house of human rights, of freedom of opinion and expression,” the United States is the laboratory in which those concepts were tested and proven.  That fact, alone, gives Islamists all the justification they need to see us wiped from the face of the Earth.  There is far too much at stake to be gambled away in some “charming human rights” experiment, in a contest we cannot win.  And if we are so unwise as to invite the forces of Islam to coexist with us, on our own soil, then we too, like Europe, will crumble from within.

RELATED ARTICLE: Trump reportedly considering Mideast peace conference

The TRUTH about the Muslim Immigration BAN

This video by Steve Cioccolanti & Discover Ministries explains why Christians have a Biblical role to deal with real world issues, such as media lies and America’s policies toward Islam.

Pastors, priests and rabbis have a duty to expose the truth as does Steve Cioccolanti.